CRUMMEY, Michael

PERSONAL: Born in Buchans, Newfoundland, Canada. Education: Memorial University, St. John's, Canada, B.A.

ADDRESSES: Home—St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Random House of Canada, Ltd., One Toronto St., Unit 300, Toronto, Ontario M5C 2V6, Canada.

CAREER: Poet and writer.

AWARDS, HONORS: Bronwen Wallace Award, 1994; Writers' Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador Literary Award for Poetry, 1996.

WRITINGS:

Arguments with Gravity, Quarry Press (Kingston, Canada), 1996.

Hard Light, Brick Books (Ontario, Canada), 1998.

Flesh and Blood: Stories, Beach Holme Publishing (Vancouver, Canada), 1998.

River Thieves, Doubleday Canada (Toronto, Canada), 2001.

Salvage, McClelland & Stewart (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS: Arguments with Gravity, a collection of poems, established Michael Crummey as a writer worth watching. The first part contains poems centered on his own family and the realities of working class life in Newfoundland. Other sections concern politics, gender issues, and travel, including travel to China. "Flash fires of brilliant lines occur throughout. This young writer has voice," wrote John B. Lee in Quill & Quire, though he found the political poems too preachy and bombastic. Canadian Book Review Annual contributor James Deahl called it "an impressive debut," particularly the section about his home and father, which "splendidly evokes a world of real work, of cod fishing and hardrock mining."

Crummey's next poetry collection, Hard Light, focuses more exclusively on the cod fishers and miners of his hometown. The first section is a series of poetic narratives dealing with the tribulations of small-town life. This was followed by a poetic retelling of a diary written by a Captain John Froude, who sailed the seas in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries before retiring to Newfoundland. The last section, "A Map of the Islands," is a series of poems contrasting the permanence of the Newfoundland landscape with the changing lives and cultures of its inhabitants. R.G. Moyles in the Canadian Book Review Annual wrote, "Crummey is not only clever in his manipulation of materials; he is a brilliant stylist, never obscure and rarely pedantic." Marnie Parsons in the University of Toronto Quarterly noted Crummey's connections between the land, the people, and the fish that are so much a part of both. She wrote, "throughout the book, Crummey suggests the congruity between man and fish—the fish, splayed like a man; the man, heart cut out like a fish. The people in this book are of Newfoundland, the land and the sea, with their many variations and complexities." Canadian Literature reviewer Claire Wilkshire concluded, "Hard Light marks Crummey's emergence as a poet of distinction."

The same year, Crummey also published Flesh and Blood, a collection of linked short stories set, like Hard Light, in Newfoundland, more specifically in the small mining town of Black Rock. Torn between magical moments and mundane realities, the miners and housewives of Black Rock often have moments of revelation, but without easy transformations. "In all of Crummey's stories, generosity and understanding are never straightforwardly achieved, and fate is as meaningful as prayer and love in his characters' lives," observed Canadian Literature reviewer Danielle Fuller. Many of the stories focus on some kind of exile, and while noting that this provided a unity of design, Canadian Book Review Annual contributor R.G. Moyles felt that "the repetition of theme, the insistent negativity, and the lack of variety create a monotony that Crummey avoided entirely in . . . Hard Light." More favorably, Quill & Quire reviewer Peter Darbyshire wrote, "Crummey's rich language runs through these stories like a vein of precious metal." For Derbyshire, "The everyday world is transformed here, from a desolate and hard place into a fragile, magical one."

Crummey's next venture was the full-length novel River Thieves, this time set in Newfoundland's past and centered around an historical incident. In 1810 a British naval officer, David Buchan, is charged to establish relations with a local tribe, the Beothuks, nicknamed the "Red Indians" for their custom of covering their bodies in red ochre. The expedition ends badly, with an exchange of hostages with the Beothuks, who end up killing their captives, and beheading the corpses. A subsequent expedition, led by one of the area's most prominent citizens, leads to the capture of a Beothuk woman and the murder of her husband. Once again, David Buchan is sent to investigate. "Crummey's craftsmanship is masterful," remarked Maclean's reviewer Brian Bethune. "As he seamlessly moves between memories and present events, glossing over horrors from one perspective and pinning them to the wall from another, he juxtaposes the mutual incomprehension of whole peoples with the equally profound misunderstandings among the individual characters."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Canadian Book Review Annual, 1997, James Deahl, review of Arguments with Gravity, p. 224; 1998, R. G. Moyles, review of Flesh and Blood, p. 208; 1999, R. G. Moyles, review of Hard Light, p. 207.

Canadian Literature, autumn-winter, 2001, Danielle Fuller, "Living in Hopes: Atlantic Realities and Realisms," pp. 199-202; spring, 2001, Claire Wilkshire, "Family History," pp. 130-131.

Maclean's, September 17, 2001, Brian Bethune, "Into the Robbers' Den: A Powerful Debut Mines the Rock's Dark History," p. 46.

Quill & Quire, December, 1996, John. B. Lee, review of Arguments with Gravity, p. 33; December, 1998, Peter Darbyshire, review of Flesh and Blood, p. 32.

University of Toronto Quarterly, winter, 1999, Marnie Parsons, review of Hard Light, pp. 43, 62-67.*